I explain in the most simple form: "a lucid dream is where you are in a dream and you know you're dreaming." I believe people will understand this. If they ask how you do it, it's another story.I also believe that all people have lucid dreams or some kind of lucidity. They just don't know it or don't know the name. All people have nightmares that they want to wake up. If they know that they're having a bad dream and they want to wake up, they're having a kind of a lucid dream. You won't believe how many people have this.

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of, "How do you describe what it looks like or how it feels?"

I would simply respond with a question of my own: Do you remember what your regular dreams look and feel like? It's a lot like that! But when lucid you can decide what to do in the dream, knowing full well it is a dream, but it doesn't always turn out the way you want it to. I can decide to open a door to see what's on the other side, but I don't always know what will be there until after I open it. (With more practice you can will things to occur and appear with more ease, but it still doesn't always happen the way I expect it to).

Sometimes places seem dark, dim, and vague with a low level of detail. And other times things are vibrant and bright and colorful with many details. And all our regular dreams are like that too if you can recall them.

So if anyone is wondering how it looks and feels? I would say, a lot like our regular dreams.

So, i guess i would explain something like:-"Don't you like to have the ability to fly? If you could, wouldn't you jump right now to the moon?"I guess people will always say yes.-"I can do that and more in my dreams. Anytime i want to."

Of course, it's not always like that, but for a person who doesn't know what this is, it's best to start easy and catch their attention.

Last edited by Highlander on 16 Jun 2013 15:27, edited 1 time in total.

I tell them that it is just like this, a real world with full sensory input and a few different rules. The "just like this" is the bit that gets them, we all think our dreams are special and if we say we fly its very subjective but to have someone understand the reality of it to normal daily life it gives a framework for understanding.

Who are you I asked, the reply "dont be silly, we are your daughers" many years before they were born

I've never had a lucid dream as real as waking life. The colors are different and come to think of it I don't recall seeing things cast shadows onto other nearby objects. I see them all with equal clarity (or lack of, but still equal). Even things in the distance are not blurry, just smaller. And I know what they are even if they should be too far away to see in real life. I just know as if the idea in my head was there before the visual of it.

And although things may not look the same as in real life, I get the impression that a toaster is a toaster... even if it has a purple hue, is larger than normal and has a radio antenna growing out of it. (That never actually happened to me, but similar, and it is an exaggeration to prove a point). But you just sort of know and feel that it is a toaster. Unless you truly examine it, but many objects in a dream kitchen may be out of whack, but it still feels like you are in a kitchen.

And another thing I will add, since it happened last night in a lucid dream. Someone spoke to me and it came from my right, and I looked over and although they were far away (30 feet I would have guessed), just as I looked at them they filled my range of view as if it was taking up the whole 'screen' in a movie. Just for a moment when I focused on them it was like seeing through binoculars for just a moment, then I turned away. Those sorts of things happen in lucid dreams so frequently I never really noticed until now. But they do.

But I have also noticed my regular dreams do all this too.(Or maybe I'm the only one and dream differently, but I don't think so.)

HAGART wrote:And another thing I will add, since it happened last night in a lucid dream. Someone spoke to me and it came from my right, and I looked over and although they were far away (30 feet I would have guessed), just as I looked at them they filled my range of view as if it was taking up the whole 'screen' in a movie. Just for a moment when I focused on them it was like seeing through binoculars for just a moment, then I turned away. Those sorts of things happen in lucid dreams so frequently I never really noticed until now. But they do.

YES, I am going to reply to my own response....

I thought about it more and there is another possibility. Perhaps I didn't 'zoom in', but instead got a strong image in my mind's eye for a brief moment. I get this in regular dreams too. I write in my journal that such and such was happening and then I envision an image for a brief moment and then am back in the same place again. It's our own imaginative mind's eye they we use when awake, but in a lucid dream it creates an actual vivid image when it happens. So I can be in a dream, get a strong image for a moment and then am back in the same dream space again. It happens very quickly and I never really noticed until now that I think about it.

I've been thinking about this more after watching the movie, Paprika. How can a movie accurately show what a dream looks like? It can't capture the feelings, but just the visuals.

Another thing is how objects can morph into other things. Especially if you look away and then back at it again. (Not always, but it is common). I've never seen a movie accurately depict a lucid dream, but then again it would be too convoluted and disorientating without the feelings that we feel in them. Sometimes we just know things are there even if we can't see them.

Maybe I should have put this in the beginners section, because that's how all this started. I was trying to figure out how to describe a lucid dream to someone who has never experienced it before. But I said it once and I'll say it again, all my regular dreams have these same effects, so visually they are very similar and sometimes vivid and sometimes vague.

A place that you can call your own - a place created by your personal experiences, a place that you can mold to your own extent.

An amazing place and experience that too many people miss out on every day.Its the closest we can get to understanding jut how incredible and UNlimited the brain is. Its our way of experiencing more than the 10% of brain power we use.

No one else can change what we create and imagine in our lucid dreams - it is our own.